Vegan Lemon Cupcakes & Cream Cheese

Cute lemony cupcakes, a fluffy and moist dome shapes cupcake. Light in colour and with that great taste of lemon, topped with a delicious vegan cream cheese frosting with added lemon juice and lemon zest, garnished with dried lemon zest.

Perfect little cupcakes that tastes very lemony, and still has that sweetness to balance the sour, but still not too sweet. The taste is very refreshing and is perfect for spring and summer, a birthday or a special occasion.

Measure all the dry ingredients and put into a big bowl, leave the chia seeds and oats out, these should be put in last. Mix everything well with a whisk.

Melt the margarine. Add to the dry ingredients with the almond milk and the neutral oil. Whisk well.

Finely grate the zest off of 2-3 lemons, or until you have about 4 tablespoons worth. Add half to the bowl, save the rest for the frosting and the garnish.

Chop the lemon in half and squeeze out juice worth of 80ml (1/3 cup) and a little more for the frosting to set aside as well. Add to the bowl. Whisk well until everything is well combined.

Add in the rolled oats and chia seeds, mix well and let sit for a few minutes, the oats and chia seeds with soak up some liquid.

Prepare 16 cupcake molds with paper linings. Fill up the cupcakes with the batter so it fills up to just below the edge.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180c (350 F), in the middle of the oven on normal setting for about 25 minutes, or until they look puffed up and a toothpick comes out clean when testing if they’re fully baked. Meanwhile prepare the frosting.

In a bowl put in the vegan cream cheese and the powdered sugar. Add in the lemon zest and the lemon that you prepared and set aside previously. Mix gently with a fork until its just combined. Don’t mix it roughly as the cream cheese gets more liquid as it gets stirred, just combine it gently. Add the frosting to a piping bag with a nozzle of choice. Let rest in the fridge, this will make it stiffen more.

When the cupcakes are fully baked take them out of the oven and let cool down completely (!) before frosting them. Optionally you can decorate them with some leftover grated lemon zest, I put mine on a plate over the heater, it dried super fast, but freshly grated is also delicious.

Note: the frosting should be kept refrigerated, if you frost all the cupcakes then let them sit in the fridge until serving (the frosting will hold its shape well, so if you have space its ok), or as I often do, keep the cupcakes sealed in a bag on the counter, keep the frosting in the piping bag in the fridge and just pipe them when I want to eat them.